With the 2016 coming to an end Sunday night in Houston, Rob Rang of CBSSports.com figured Monday would be a perfect time for him to release his latest mock draft.
Rang, whose latest offering is only for the first round, has the Pittsburgh Steelers selecting Washington cornerback Sidney Jones with the 29th overall pick. Why he has his draft order wrong is anyone’s guess as the Steelers are currently scheduled to pick 30th overall in the 2017 NFL Draft.
Rang writes of Jones:
The loss in the AFC Championship game proved that Pittsburgh’s secondary still has its faults, especially when multiple receivers are on the field. Jones is not the classic zone corner Pittsburgh has built around in the past, excelling instead in man coverage due to his agility, acceleration and route awareness.
Jones, who ESPN.com has listed at 6-0, 180-pounds, played in 40 games during his college career and registered 145 total tackles to go along with 9 interceptions, 6 forced fumbles and 21 pass breakups.
As you’ll likely see when reviewing Jones’ tape, he predominantly played on the left side of the Washington defense. He also has a lot of experience playing up on the line as part of man-to-man and bump and run coverages. While I haven’t dug thoroughly into his tape just yet, Jones appears to be a willing tackler.
Jones will certainly be one of many cornerbacks that we’ll profile on the site in the coming weeks and it will be really interesting to watch how he performs at the upcoming NFL scouting combine as well.
Just so you know, Rang has three other cornerbacks being drafted ahead of Jones in his latest mock draft and they are Marshon Lattimore, Teez Tabor and Marlon Humphrey.
